There are 4.48 billion social media users around the world today. It means that 2/3 of the global population have at least one social media account. As such, brands and businesses focus on social media marketing. It is an essential key to success in promoting their products and services online. For many, social media is a way to connect to the world. According to a social media agency Hong Kong, it is also a place to find ideas and inspiration. That is why the marketing strategies in these online platforms are very different. First, you need to educate your target audience to give them ideas. Second, you also need to be creative in engaging and inspiring them.
There are so many social media platforms available online. The challenge for brands and businesses is choosing the right one. To help them make better decisions, here’s a half-year review of the top social media platforms.
CLUBHOUSE
The Clubhouse app is a social audio app launched last March 2020. A digital marketing speaker Hong Kong highlighted that it revolutionized the audio marketing industry. Other social media platforms tried to clone the app. The Clubhouse app was initially invite-only in iOS but has recorded 13 million downloads in less than a year. Today, it has enabled Android download and has opened its membership to the public. The audio chat app now has 20 million downloads. With 10 million monthly active users, Clubhouse is now worth $4 billion in a Series C round.
The king of social media has now grown to 2.895 billion monthly active users. Almost fifty percent of its members come from the Asia-Pacific region. Its quarterly revenue stands at $29,077 billion. A large part of the earnings came from Canada, Europe, and the United States. Facebook now focuses on AR and VR innovations. It is also adding features and tools for live broadcast and paid online events. By 09 August 2021, it will hold the first-ever movie premiere. With Facebook Pay being made available among 3rd party platforms, this year may be a huge leap for Facebook paid services.
Since Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012, it has become one of the most influential social media platforms globally. With a large number of millennials using the app, the platform switched from photo-sharing into photo-and-video-sharing. As of Q2 of 2021, Instagram has 1.386 billion monthly active users. Its revenue stands at $18.16 billion. At the beginning of 2021, Instagram introduced a “Professional Dashboard.” It houses all the features and tools a brand or business needs to manage an Instagram account. The platform has also integrated its Messaging API, allowing access to multiple Instagram pages.
The largest online network of professionals now has 774 million monthly active users. LinkedIn was also currently on track to generate $3.7 billion for this full year. A video marketing agency Hong Kong notes that LinkedIn posts with videos are 20x more likely to be shared than any other forms of posts. It may be the reason why the platform focuses mainly on enhancing LinkedIn Stories as of these days. It was introduced in late September 2020. Last January, LinkedIn enabled the automatic “follow” action and swipe up button to enhance its Stories features.
After reporting a series of consecutive growth for 11 quarters, Pinterest showed a slight decline in Q2 of 2021. It now has 454 million monthly active users. But its revenue grew to $613 million, on track with a growth of 125% year over year. Pinterest has noted that the decline is due to the easing restrictions on physical stores. Brick-and-mortar shops are slowly coming back. It makes shoppers shift back to store visits instead of online searches. As such, Pinterest now focuses on expanding its virtual try-ons. Initially, the visual search engine enabled it among makeup products from big global brands. Recently, it enabled a virtual test drive for Volkswagen. Pinterest has also added more ways for creators to earn money. These include product tags and paid partnerships.
SNAPCHAT
Snapchat now has 293 million monthly active users. Its revenue now stands at $982 million. It is a solid increase in both account and profit growth. After a shaky period resulting from the launch of Instagram Stories, the messaging app is now recovering. It has seen significant growth in India after the TikTok ban. Recently, the platform launched the “Open Your Snapchat” video campaign in key cities of the world. It also introduced the “Campaign Lab,” a hub for creating Snap Ads.
TIKTOK
TikTok is a Chinese short video clip app that recently made waves around the world. Because of the rapid growth among its users, many social media platforms cloned the app. There are Reels from Facebook, Shorts from YouTube, and Spotlight from Snapchat. TikTok became the first non-Facebook app to hit 3 billion downloads. It is estimated to have 689 million monthly active users today. Its current revenue now passed $2.5 billion. Thus, it became one of the non-gaming apps with a revenue greater than $1 billion since 2014. TikTok has greeted the world with a whirlwind of short amateur videos. Because of the fun and interactive elements, people started using them as a daily routine. They cater to a variety of genres – brands, celebrities, millennials, and kids.
Twitter’s revenue was up to $1.19 billion in Q2 of 2021. It also has 206 million daily active users. It was a strong quarter for the microblogging site. The platform has added several paid subscription services to boost its revenue. These include Twitter Blue, newsletter sign-up, Super Follow, ticketed Spaces, and Tomorrow weather subscription. Today, many brands and businesses feel more positive about Twitter marketing. As the platform houses current global events conversations and ramps up in enhancing its marketing tools, Twitter is becoming the biggest threat to Facebook.
YOUTUBE
The video-sharing platform accelerated back to high growth as it reached $7 billion in revenue in Q2 of 2021. YouTube now stands at 2 billion monthly active users. Alphabet, Google’s parent company who owned YouTube reported that there was a spike in advertising revenue resulting from the lockdowns and social distancing measures from the COVID pandemic. Shopping behaviors were forced to shift from physical stores to eCommerce websites. Plus, videos have greatly influenced shoppers to learn more about a brand, product, or service.